Through the Years
by SabaceanBabe
Summary: Karl Agathon, Kara Thrace, and Margaret Edmondson and their friendship through the years...
1. Chapter 1

Title: Through the Years

Author: SabaceanBabe

Focus: Karl Agathon, Kara Thrace, and Margaret Edmondson, from pre-series to the end

Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit, please don't sue.

Author's note: Written for Poisontaster as part of the Sweet Charity fandom auction.

--

Karl scribbled out the answer to the final question on the quiz and lay down his pen. He may not have answered all the questions correctly, but he had answered them, something his mother had drilled into him as a boy. With it being the first day of classes, no one had expected either a real lecture or a pop quiz, but apparently the instructor wanted a baseline determination of what the newly dubbed nuggets did or didn't know, what they were capable of on the fly.

"Hey," a blonde girl to his left whispered, "could you move your hand for a sec?"

Frowning, Karl turned his head just enough to look at her out of the corner of his eye. "Are you kidding me? It's the first day of frakking class and you're cheating?" Unfortunately, Captain Mahdasian noticed the brief exchange.

"Thrace. Agathon. Atten_tion_!" Ignoring the order was not an option. Karl stood, accompanied by a loud scraping sound when the backs of his knees hit the edge of his chair, pushing the chair back with more force than he'd intended.

"Thrace and Agathon." Karl felt his face grow warm. "You know where the Commander's office is." A statement, not a question. "Go there now. Leave your papers on my desk." The captain's voice remained calm, even, and somehow that just made it all worse.

Karl swallowed hard; his mother was going to kill him. He didn't trust his voice and so responded to the captain with what he hoped was the crispest salute he'd ever delivered.

Thrace said, "Yes, sir," and headed for the desk, quiz in hand. Karl followed and laid his on hers before trailing her out the door. He did his best to ignore the whispers behind them.

"Settle down, nuggets. You have a quiz to finish." The door closed behind Karl, cutting off whatever else Mahdasian may have said.

A peal of laughter drew his attention to Thrace. An unrepentant smirk on her face, she shot him a challenging look.

Shaking his head in disgust, Karl didn't say a word, just brushed past her, deliberately bumping her shoulder. He ran through what he would say to the headmaster of the Academy as he walked rapidly to Commander Reliford's office. No frakking way was he getting cashiered for cheating. No _frakking_ way.

Running footsteps came up behind him and then she shot past him, turning to walk backwards, facing him. "You're not really going to the Commander's office, are you?" she asked, a challenge in her green eyes.

Incredulous, Karl kept walking, forcing her to take faster steps to keep from being overrun. "Yeah, I am."

"Pussy."

"What did you say?"

"You heard me. Mahdasian is an ass."

Karl stopped. "Mahdasian is a superior officer."

A small smirk still in place, Thrace stopped, too. She shrugged, eyes drifting back to the classroom they'd just left. "Well, he's an _officer_…"

"You are unbelievable." Karl stalked away from her, his shoes squeaking every so often on the highly polished floor.

"You better believe it, Agathon!" she called after him. Karl heard the laughter in her voice and bit back a laugh of his own. No need to encourage her.


	2. Chapter 2

_…bounce…_

…_wait half-a-second…_

…_bounce…_

Karl looked up from his notes to glare at Kara, who tossed a Pyramid ball against the dorm room wall again and again. Shaking his head, he dropped his gaze back to his notes on Colonial history, written hurriedly yet with painstaking detail. Gods, he hated history! The present was so much more interesting. Finally he found his place on the page – the origins of Colonial Day – and then…

…_bounce…_

…_wait half-a-second…_

…_bounce…_

"Dammit, Kara." He slammed his pen down in the clear spot to the right of his stack of notes. And then he watched it roll, gaining momentum, until it dropped to the floor with enough of a bounce to take it out of easy reach. He glared at it.

Kara merely raised one brow and continued bouncing the ball at the same pace as before. "Feel better now, Karl?"

…_bounce…_

…_wait half-a-second…_

…_bounce…_

"The test in the morning is worth half our grade." He sighed. He'd have to crawl under the desk to retrieve the pen. Frak it. It wasn't like he needed to write anything anyway, he just had to read. And read. And then read some more.

…_bounce…_

…_wait half-a-second…_

The ball hit him on the shoulder – "Hey!" – and veered off at a tangent, away from both Kara and Karl.

"I'm bored," Kara announced.

"No frakkin' shit." He rubbed at his shoulder, pretending more pain than he actually felt.

Kara straightened from her slumped position on his bed, dropping her feet to the floor. "Let's go to the Flight Line."

Karl leaned back in his chair and twisted around to look at her. "The Flight Line." They had less than twelve hours until one of their most important mid-term exams and Kara wanted to go out drinking.

"Gods, Karl." She pushed up from the bed and started toward him. "You are such a killjoy."

"It's my job." He watched her approach with suspicion. A bored Kara Thrace could be a bit… unpredictable, if entertaining.

She pulled his chair the rest of the way out from beneath the desk and straddled him, trapping his legs and draping her arms over his shoulders. "I'm bored, Karl," she repeated, her voice softer, and leaned into him so that he'd have to move his head back or get a faceful of her throat and collarbones. Which normally wasn't a problem, but that exam… He breathed in the scent of her skin without meaning to and before he could stop himself, he nuzzled at her neck. He certainly didn't prolong the moment. And he definitely didn't open his mouth and trail his tongue along the smooth line of her nape until a soft sound escaped her lips.

"Dammit, Kara." He pushed her away and she stumbled, catching herself on the edge of the desk before she fell to the floor, even as Karl reached out to catch her. She pulled away from him and headed past his roommate's bed, toward the door.

"I thought you came over to study," Karl called out.

Jacket in hand, she turned toward him. "I did. But I changed my mind." She laid her hand on the doorknob, which turned under her hand. The door opened, hitting her in the back, and pushed her to the side. Turning away from Karl, she glared at the newcomer.

"Don't you ever knock?"

Reilly, Karl's roommate, looked at Kara as though she were some kind of insect. "What are you doing here, Thrace?" He hung his coat neatly on a peg by the door and sidestepped around Kara.

"Leaving." Kara looked over at Karl. Karl looked at his history notes and at Reilly and back over to Kara, who shrugged into her jacket. "You coming, Karl?"

The prospect of studying anymore tonight was a sour taste in his mouth. The thought of studying with Reilly, whose fussiness could make the Gods weep in frustration, made his head start to pound. _Frak it. History is only ten percent of the grade,_ he thought.

He stood and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair.

x x x

Kara felt a little bit guilty at pulling Karl away from his history notes. Not that she'd ever tell him that. And really, his scores on the simulators and at the firing range and his test scores in math and science put him near the top of their class. Even if he crashed and burned on the history part of the mid-term tomorrow, it wouldn't hurt him that much.

Still, she felt a little guilty. She drained her beer and stood up, steadying herself with one hand on the table and the other on the back of Karl's chair. He looked up at her, a goofy grin on his face and she glanced at the nameless girl who sat beside him, hanging on his every word. Kara smirked at her friend and leaned in to whisper, "Play your cards right, Agathon, and you might get laid tonight after all." He elbowed her in response and turned back to his groupie.

Kara winked at Jonas Chang, who had been on his way out of the dorms just ahead of Karl and Kara. They had talked him into going to the Flight Line with them and Chang had even bought the first pitcher of beer. Straightening, she turned and headed up to the bar. It was her turn to buy and she might as well do it now, since her own glass was empty and Chang's wasn't far behind.

The notes from a piano, lingering in the melody but staccato and harsh in the counter-melody, warred with the sound of the crowds cheering on the Picon Panthers, broadcast from several screens at the bar. The crowds won out as she drew further away from the piano, which was just as well. The tune the guy played was one she'd heard many times as a little girl, listening to her father as he practiced for hours on end. Thoughts of her father, long dead and gone, sobered her, which wasn't at all what she wanted.

Leaning against the edge of the bar, she raised a hand to get the bartender's attention. Loud boos and jeers pulled her gaze to the screen above her head, where the Caprica Buccaneers had just scored a goal that had apparently tied the game in the last period, sending it into overtime. As she watched, one of the Panthers went down hard on the court, her leg below the knee at an odd angle and Kara felt a sympathetic jolt in her own knee. She grimaced at the remembered pain of the injury that had ended any thought she may have had at making it as a pro on the Pyramid circuit.

And suddenly, Kara no longer had the stomach for being there at all. Too many memories. Too many failures. The bartender finally came over to take her order, but rather than another pitcher of beer, she slapped her palm on the surface of the bar and said, "Gimme a bottle of Feist." It wasn't the cheapest ambrosia she could order, but neither was it the most expensive.

When she got back to the table, thoughts of the morning's exams had clearly flown away from Karl's head, replaced by a cute red-head who laughed at all of his dumbass jokes. Chang didn't look too happy at being a third wheel, either and Kara cocked her head at him and held up the bottle of Feist. "Let's blow this joint."


	3. Chapter 3

Maggie tuned Eric out as he spoke. All he did lately was talk, but never anything of substance. As much as she loved him, he drove her crazy with the lectures on what she should do with her life and how things were going to change once they were married. He was forever making plans for her, and forever forgetting to mention those plans _to_ her.

Her attention drifted over to Leonidas, the band's keyboardist. He looked pointedly at Eric, who didn't notice, then crossed his eyes at Maggie, letting them roll up into his head as he leaned back in his chair. Maggie burst out laughing. Eric stopped talking mid-sentence, looking offended. Still snickering at Leo's goofing, Maggie laid a hand on Eric's wrist.

"Eric, I'm so sorry. I got distracted." She made a face at Leo then turned back to her fiancé. "What were you saying?"

Eric shifted his chair, putting himself more fully into her line of sight and intentionally blocking Leo. She tried to focus on him. She really did. But with the new positioning, she could see the bar's manager gesture at her and Leo and Trin. Maggie forced her attention to what Eric was saying.

"Once we're married, Meg," – Gods, she hated it when he called her that – "you won't have to play these gigs anymore." He smiled and for a moment Maggie just stared at him. Not play?

Trin touched Maggie lightly on the shoulder. "Time to work, Mags," she said as she and Leo walked past, headed for the stage.

"I've gotta go." Maggie stood, but she didn't follow them right away. Instead she looked down at Eric. She'd let him talk her out of joining the Colonial Fleet, but she'd be damned if she was going to let him take her music from her, too. She didn't know what he saw in her face, her eyes, but color crept up his cheeks as she spoke. "I like these gigs, Eric." Not giving him a chance to say anything more, Maggie strode away from him.

"Meg, I'm sorry!" he called after her. She ignored him, taking the steps up the stage in two leaps. She took her place at the drums and waited for Trin to call the beat, keeping her mind a blank as she waited for the music to take over.

XXX

She was still in a kind of mental fog driving home after the bar closed. She and Trin had stayed on after the third set, talking about nothing and playing Triad – no mean feat, considering it was just the two of them. But Maggie hadn't mentioned Eric, or why he had left before the final set was finished, and Trin hadn't pressed. But then she wouldn't. Not her style.

Maybe Maggie _should_ have said something, though. This crap with Eric was becoming more and more common and she didn't know how much more she could take. She wanted him to be happy, but shouldn't she be happy, too? It didn't used to be this way. There was a time when he'd been more relaxed, willing to let things happen as the gods willed instead of trying to force everyone and everything into a certain path, a certain mold. A time when he'd laughed easily and often. In fact, his ready laugh was one of the things that had drawn her to him in the first place. But over the years, he laughed less and less. Had she done something to cause that?

Without making a conscious decision, she sailed right past her exit and continued on, heading north, toward her grandmother's place. She needed to talk to someone and there wasn't anyone better than Gran. Besides, if she went home now, she'd only be irritated further by the light on her phone, blinking incessantly for her attention. _Look at me. Listen to me. Talk to me. Cater to me._ There was no way there weren't at least half a dozen messages from Eric waiting for her.

But when she pulled into Gran's complex half an hour later and put the car into park, she just sat there, engine idling and music playing softly on the radio. The building was dark, no lights lit in Gran's apartment, none in the apartment that shared the driveway with Gran's.

"What did you expect, genius?" Maggie asked herself. "It's three in the frakking morning." She couldn't just go knock on Gran's door. Waking her up in the middle of the night like that? She'd probably give the old woman a heart attack. At the very least, she'd cause unnecessary worry.

Shutting off the engine, Maggie leaned her head back into the headrest and stared out her car's moon roof, which was open to the sparkling night sky. It was clear and a little chilly; no streetlights or shuttle traffic overhead interfered with the beauty of the night.

That was one of the reasons Gran had chosen this place, that clear and unobstructed view of the night sky. She said she was too old to camp out under those stars as she and Maggie had done when Maggie was a little girl, but she could sit out on her deck in a comfortable chair and still immerse herself in the night, safe at home. Gemma Edmondson had never stopped being a Priestess of Artemis, even if she _was_ officially retired and had been for the last eight years.

XXX

A persistent tapping woke Maggie. She blinked, trying to reconcile the sound and the faint but definite scent of coffee with her current surroundings. Her neck hurt and her ass was numb. She blinked again.

"Maggie?" This accompanied the sharper sound of metal on glass.

Maggie turned her head toward the rapping and winced. Was she in her _car_?

Gran's face outside the closed window was the picture of amused concern as Maggie jerked upright. Behind her grandmother, the sun was just breaking the tops of the distant trees. Maggie shivered and grabbed her backpack from the passenger seat, then swiveled back to open her door, but she pulled up short when she tried to get out.

"Your seatbelt." Gran gestured with a spoon – no doubt what she'd used to finally wake her granddaughter – toward Maggie's waist. The older woman stepped back from the now-open door, a steaming cup of coffee in her hand, a bright red robe wrapped around her body. Maggie must have just stared at her, because she clarified, laughter in her voice, "You have to unfasten your seatbelt."

Looking down, feeling a little stupid, Maggie released the small maglock. Even with the moon roof open, the outside air was a good deal cooler than that in her car, but the coffee scent was more intense, so that almost made up for it.

"Is everything okay, dear?" Gran held out the steaming cup for Maggie, who gratefully accepted it with a grin.

"It is now, Gran."


	4. Chapter 4

Kara looked at her cards, carefully keeping her disappointment from her face. _What a crap draw._ Aloud she simply said, "Two." A phone trilled at the back of the rec room as Shark, the _Triton_'s CAG, slid two cards across the table to Kara's waiting hand. She peeled up the edges to peek at them – both red, that was something – when a man shouted, "Thrace! You've got a call!"

Her brows shot up – she never got calls – and her eyes met Shark's. The older woman shrugged and Trickster, a rook like herself, said, "I need a break anyway. You ladies are cleaning me out." Kara shot him a grin and slid her chair back from the table, scooping up the rest of her cards to the feigned protests of both her opponents. "I'm not leaving my hand here for you losers to gawk at," she tossed over her shoulder as she headed over to take the call, cards in one hand, beer in the other.

The face on the view screen was a familiar one and a pleasant surprise as she'd been expecting – dreading – that it would be her mother. As she set her cards on the table and sat with her back to the room, shifting the screen to face her, the man who'd answered the call whispered, "I can have it transferred to quarters, if you'd rather have some privacy."

Kara just shook her head and grinned at the face on the screen, raising the bottle in her hand in salute and letting the babble of voices fade into the background as Ensign Karl Agathon said, _"Well, if it isn't the one and only Starbuck!"_

"Karl! Or should I say Helo? Still splashing in the kiddie pool?" She nodded toward the Raptor patch on his flight suit.

"_Ha ha. Very funny."_ Karl was more than qualified on the Viper, but he chose to fly Raptors instead, said they had way more leg room than the single-man fighter. Which was true, but that didn't make it any less fun to razz him about it every chance she got. _"And how many times have you been in hack in the three months you've been there?"_

She heard the laughter in his voice even though he kept his expression serious. "Bite me, Agathon."

He threw his head back and laughed. _"Love to, Kara, but you're a little too far away."_

"And it's only been twice," she said and stuck her tongue out at him.

Gods, she missed him. And how in all the Hells had that happened? They'd been at the Academy together for two years and he'd managed to worm his way into her life so thoroughly that almost every day saw something she wanted to tell him about. She'd never had that with another human being before. Never. Everyone else she either competed with or she frakked, but not Karl Agathon. Okay, sometimes Karl, too, but mostly she just relaxed around him. He didn't have any expectations for her to live up to. Or down to. He just let her be who she was.

She realized that while she'd been distracted, Karl had continued talking. "Sorry, Karl, what did you say? I wasn't listening."

He let loose a dramatic, long-suffering sigh and she grinned again at the put-upon expression on her friend's face. And he was her friend. Probably the only real friend she'd ever had. Had ever let herself have. _"I said, Kara, that I have a leave rotation coming up in three weeks. Only a couple of days, but I thought if you could get a couple of days, too, we could meet in the middle. Maybe get together on Picon, check out the playoffs…?"_

She shifted a little, looking past the view screen at the other pilots in the rec room without seeing them, and leaned back into her chair, feeling the cold metal on the bare skin of her arms. "I can check." She glanced over to the Triad table where Shark and Trickster were laughing at something Farmboy had said. "Shark'd probably be okay with it, but I don't know about the Commander." Maybe she could get Shark to say something for her. She really _did_ want to spend a couple of days with Karl.

Taking a pull from her beer, she drew her gaze from the waiting Triad game back to the view screen. She almost laughed at Karl's hopeful expression. Instead, she gave him a speculative look and said, "Make it Scorpia and paragliding and I'll make it happen, somehow." She'd been trying to get the bastard to 'glide off the cliffs of Scorpia's Thanatos Sea since their first year at the Academy, but he'd always blown it off, usually in favor of some kind of championship or playoff. Kara would much rather do than watch.

Karl's eyes narrowed and she thought he was going to insist on Picon, but then he shrugged, drawing her eyes again to the blue Raptor patch on his shoulder. _"Scorpia it is. But if I break anything, it's on your head."_

She cocked her head to the left. "Maybe you'd better start practicing your landings, huh?" He opened his mouth to make a retort, but shut it again and Kara heard a voice in the background on his end. _"Ensign Agathon, please report to CIC. Helo, report to CIC."_

"_Kara, I've got to go. But I'll send you the specifics of my leave. You will try to get the time, right?"_

"Oh, absolutely, _Helo_. I can't wait to watch you drop your skinny ass into the Thanatos."

He made a rude gesture and then the screen went dark, but Kara's grin remained.


	5. Chapter 5

The sound of the wipers on the windshield was mesmerizing, back and forth, back and forth, _swish-thwack, swish-thwack_. The downpour made it seem more like driving through a waterfall than rain, but Maggie didn't care how heavy it was or how hard it was to see the road in front of her.

Her eyes burned with unshed tears and her throat from shouting; her neck, her shoulders, the muscles in her hands all ached from the prolonged effort to not hit him.

Eric Lubov had pushed her for the last frakking time. He was no longer part of her life, whether he accepted it or not. It was her decision, dammit, not his, not _theirs_ – a relationship couldn't work unless both parties wanted it to, were willing to work at it, to compromise – and Eric had proved to her one time too many that he didn't want a partnership. He wanted a dictatorship.

…_swish-thwack, swish-thwack…_

A car passed hers and the sign for exit 32, where she'd leave the highway for the road to her grandmother's house, appeared in the distance. Her headlights cut through the gloomy afternoon and raindrops picked up the glow of the beams, changing it to sparkles and gossamer ropes of light. Maggie switched on her turn signal, the motion automatic.

But as the exit approached, she made no move to take it. And then she drove on by.

…_swish-thwack, swish-thwack…_

Something tickled at her chin as she continued down the highway, and she realized that the tears that had threatened earlier tracked down her cheeks and dripped off her chin, from the end of her nose, unnoticed until now. She dashed them angrily away, flicking off her forgotten turn signal with almost the same motion.

"Damn you, Eric," she whispered, even though she was the only one there to hear it. "Why?"

Why did he have to be in charge of everything? Why did things have to be done only his way, no deviation, and step by miniscule step? Maggie felt her temper rise again and she pounded the heels of her hands on the steering wheel, wordlessly shouted her frustration to the gods.

…_swish-thwack, swish-thwack, flash of lightning, crack of thunder…_

The rain fell harder and most of Maggie's anger drained away; she just felt tired. She glanced down at her gauges and saw that she had gone a good fifty kilometers past Gran's exit. Her car was low on fuel. She kicked the wipers up a notch – _swish-THWACK, swish-THWACK_ – and decided she'd get off at the next opportunity. She wished she could remember what was up this way, but she really didn't get much further than Sparta when she came to visit Gran.

Another flash of lightning split the sky in front of her in a spectacular display. Any other time she would have enjoyed the show –there was nothing better than a good storm – but between depression and anger, she didn't derive any pleasure from it. The thunder that followed made the ground tremble and cemented her decision to take the next exit, the sign for which she saw up ahead, although she couldn't make out the name of the town through the driving rain.

Another kilometer passed beneath her tires and Maggie left the highway, heading toward Telos. She'd never been there before, but the glow on the horizon promised that it was a decent-sized town. If nothing else, she should be able to refuel, but at this point, she was ready to just find a hotel room and settle in for the night. It was only 18:30 according to the clock on her dash, but she wasn't in the mood for human interaction anymore; all she wanted was to sleep and to have everything be better when she woke up.

She laughed at herself and said aloud, "Not that it'll happen like that, but at least I'll get some sleep, right?" Nothing was ever easy or simple.

***

Following the storm, the air was thick and muggy, hard to breathe, but the motel she'd found didn't have room service and she was hungry, so Maggie wandered the main street of downtown Telos, window shopping while she waited for a table to become available at the Drunken Toad Tavern. Not the most appetizing of names, but it came highly recommended by the motel desk clerk, and she was to be sure to tell them Arnot had sent her.

"Probably gets a nice little kickback," she said aloud, smiling cynically. She glanced down at her watch, saw that she still had almost half an hour to kill. Up ahead were several shops with colorful awnings and cloth banners tastefully advertising their wares, dripping charm along with lingering rainwater. Across the street from where she stood were a book merchant and a Colonial Fleet recruiting office. Neither was as eye-catching as the shops up the road.

She stepped across the raging river that was the street's storm gutter and crossed to the book merchant. There were several titles on display in the window, a couple of which Maggie would have liked to take a look at, but sadly, the sign on the door proclaimed the shop closed and asked that she return at nine the following morning. She turned to leave, to check out the quaint and no doubt overpriced shops up the road, but the recruiter's open door caught her eye. That and the cool, dry air that wafted out from the interior of the office.

She poked her head in. "Hello? Anybody here?" When there was no answer, she stepped over the threshold, glad she wouldn't have to wait outside in that godsawful humidity.

The room was sparsely decorated and exactly what she expected of a recruiting office. Glossy posters depicted sleek Vipers in flight. Blue-clad ranks of women and men stood at attention, hands raised in salute. Mechanics in orange or yellow worked on fighter planes and support planes on a busy hangar deck. Proud parents hugged smiling graduates in form-fitting gray.

There was a desk in the corner opposite the front door, its polished wood surface marred only by a stack of pamphlets proclaiming the glories of service to the Fleet of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. Beyond the desk was a doorway and light leaked out into the larger office from the partially open door. Maggie called out again.

A man in a crisp blue uniform stepped out from the back room with a cup in his hand. He held it out to her and asked, "Would you like a cup of coffee? I just made a fresh pot and it always seems to taste better when there's someone to share it with." He smiled, black eyes dancing, daring her to step into his office.

Maggie raised a brow and glanced again at her watch. Less than ten minutes later than when she'd last looked at it. Plenty of time. She was frakking _made_ of time. "Why not?" She shrugged and accepted the cup, the steam from which smelled like heaven.


End file.
